When You are Forty-five
by ScarlettOR
Summary: What Scarlett's life looked like, seventeen years after the end of GWTW? A short story
1. Chapter 1

_"Scarlett, when you are forty-five, perhaps you will know what I'm talking about and then perhaps you, too, will be tired of imitation gentry and shoddy manners and cheap emotions. But I doubt it. I think you'll always be more attracted by glister than by gold. Anyway, I can't wait that long to see. And I have no desire to wait. It just doesn't interest me."_

 _\- Rhett Butler in_ _Gone with the Wind, page 1022._

* * *

She had been nursing a glass of wine in the quiet hotel veranda for a far too long time, she knew. But a lady in mourning should not be disturbed or blamed.

A long stretch heart-aching day she had. Too many hours had passed, even the vast ocean had finally calmed down. The beautiful twilight had fallen into the distant horizon. And finally, the moonlight had appeared on the peaceful water. The storm was over, the night had come, then there would be tomorrow. Her birthday would be gone, she was forty-five years old.

She supposed to be at her birthday party with her family, her children, and her grandchildren in Clayton County. But she was here, alone in this strange town.

It was a funeral that disrupted her children's plan and provided her this moment of solitary.

Too many funerals she had attended in the years of her life, and too many of her loved ones she had buried. This one was for Carreen, who departed too soon after an unpretentious life. Her eyes were still misted when she thought of her dear sister, but she'd done crying. No more tears, no tears could bring her loved ones back.

These were God's wills, she was wise enough to know and she couldn't negotiate. There was only once, after Melly's death, she gave in and asked for taking her instead of her granddaughter, Wade's first born. Neither of them was taken. Thereafter, she went on life more gingerly, because she knew she was under extended mercy.

Too many of her loved ones she had buried in many places. After Melly, Mammy and Pork in Tara, Grandpa Pierre in Savannah, Aunt Pitty, Uncle Henry and Ashley in Atlanta, Eulalie, Pauline and Carreen in Charleston. Her heart had been pierced and broken so many times, but it had managed to glue together and beat again after each loss. She was afraid to lose more, but she'd done complain long time ago. She took on whatever the life threw at her.

And too many times she had married, more than God allowed. She was the marrying type, someone told her before. A mild smile appeared on the corner of her lips, content and contempt. By God's will, she survived, even after she lost four husbands, buried three and divorced the fourth, or should say, the third.

Three weddings of her children's she had attended, still one less than her own, Wade told her so. She preferred this way, she couldn't bear her children suffered what she had. She had four children, two survived, two lost, and one stepson, and six grandchildren.

She still could count numbers well. She could count the numbers of her grandchildren, her children, and her bygone husbands. She still could count her businesses and ledgers right. But she couldn't count her losses, couldn't count how many funerals she had attended or arranged. She lost the counts. There were too many.

At age forty-five, a legend in Atlanta and the South, she knew and she didn't mind at all. She was the lady, the mistress of the largest plantation and the richest woman in the South. She was the old South and the new South, no one dared to dispute. She survived all, even though she had suffered more than anyone had ever endured.

But she was still attracted by glister, the sparkles of her grandchildren's eyes. And she was attracted by gold too, she hoarded them greedily for her children. So ironic that her third husband was deadly wrong. No, she didn't like one kind only, she liked both. Not just glister, not just gold, but both. These were the purposes she lived for and fought for, for those who she loved dearly, and for those who loved her.

It was getting late now. She should have retired to her hotel room a while ago. But she lingered in this hotel lobby, to gather her last memory of this town. All her connections to this town were gone, taken away by death. She had no reason to return again.

She won't mind if she never saw the ocean again. Its seemly calm temperament always reminded her someone she tried to forget but forever remembered. She knew its peaceful coolness was ready to be taken over by angry rolling waves if it was provoked. Once it did, it was unstoppable, unforgiving and detrimental, leaving destructed wreckage along its path. Then it would retreat suddenly, as at its own will, returning to its false calmness and waiting for its next strike. No, she had no desire to deal with it.

She must return to Clayton County, Tara and Twelve Oaks, the red earth, the dark black pines, the green rolling hills, and the endless white cotton fields. That was her home, the tranquil land where she always regained her strength. Her home, her fortress, no death could ever take away from her.

She started going up the stairs, to her room, to rest and to prepare for tomorrow.

"Miss O'Hara."

A familiar but long forgotten voice, she stopped. It was quiet in the lobby, she must be dreaming, a sign of senile, she chuckled. She continued on the stairs.

"Scarlett!"

No one called her name like he did. She stopped again, on the landing of the stairs, in a Charleston hotel, at her forty-fifth birthday.

* * *

 _AU: This came as a one-shot idea I had a few months ago when I re-read through the last part of GWTW, saw the paragraph._ _But this short story by no means suggests the end of ODFW, which I am still working on. Please do share your thoughts, comments or objections with me! Thank you!_


	2. Chapter 2

Today was her forty-fifth birthday. He had not forgotten it ever since the day he signed the divorce paper.

She was still beautiful, even wearing black and at the age of forty-five. The same age he was when he left her. His heart jolted and ached whenever he thought of that period, a familiar ache that never stopped.

He had been observing her for hours in an obscured corner, and debating for hours with himself, should he call her? The storm had come and gone, all was calm now. And he was still debating.

He was sixty-two now. Wiser than when he was forty-five? He doubted it. He remembered a self-righteous decision he made at that age, assuming to correct a wrong for he had done when he was thirty-nine. But he had regretted it ever since the day he married the second time.

Could he wait for the time to tell him the right or the wrong again? No, he ran out of the time, he couldn't afford to wait any longer.

Seventeen years had passed, too many things had happened in between. Days and years had merged together became tedious long waiting and wandering. He almost forgot how many places he had been, and almost forgot what he had been waiting for.

But he remembered the year she gave up on him after his hostile requests persistent for three years, the year when the sensation of his regained freedom dissipated, the desperation reappeared, and the profound losses and deep hurts reemerged. He remembered the year he married again for spite when he could not tell the other woman "I love you" just like he did not say it at his first wedding, for entirely different reasons. He had no love left, his love had been taken away, and his numbness forever stayed.

When he treated his second wife with a cordial respect in front of the genteel society, he knew he had treated her too callously in Atlanta. When he was holding his second wife's hand after her miscarriage, he remembered he stayed away from her sickbed, left her recovering on her own, even he was the one who caused her ill.

The news her fourth marriage came, his heart broke again. He would lie to himself that he didn't give a damn, but he couldn't. He wanted to rush to her, but his mother's silent plea stopped him. He wondered if her marriage was for love, or for spite like he did two years prior or she did seventeen years before. And suddenly he realized it was himself who never gave their love a chance to grow, lay all blames on her for their failures, gave up on her when she told him what he had waited for twelve years, and finally lost her for the fourth time and ever.

When he heard the magical revitalization of the famous Twelve Oaks, the expansion of a large conglomerate enterprise carrying four prominent names in Georgia, he knew she had survived his desertion and recreated her life once again. He would salute her steel will for survival if he ever met her again.

When the newspaper announced the sudden death of her fourth husband, a prominent citizen and politician in Atlanta, he knew her life shattered again, he felt sorry for her pain and losses, even more so than his own. But he was unapologetically delighted that once again he outlasted her husband. She and he were stubborn survivors.

But he didn't dare to run to her, not because of imitation gentry or shoddy manners he had acquired since his return. It was his emotion that ran too deep, he didn't dare to bare it even to himself, and didn't dare to show to her. He continued wandering around the world for five more years, as a rootless lone traveler.

He had no one to connect in the world. His second marriage lasted much shorter than his first even he had been a gentleman in the eyes of the old town. His mother passed away soon after his second wife, his spinster sister finally married a widower years ago, and his brother had his own life. He was a free agent. But as he got older, his desire for a family life that he carelessly threw away years ago became stronger, the life that was not the old gentry he had sought after when he was forty-five, rather the one he had been longing for since he was thirty-five.

He always remembered her, at the age of sixteen or twenty-eight. She was never far away from his thoughts, in his conscience or in his dreams, even he had not seen her for seventeen years.

Wade came into his life four years ago. They met through mutual friends for business. Wade was respectful but distant, while he insisted for more. Only when the young man almost lost his own daughter, Wade came to understand his pain and suffering, becoming more forgiving. When he heard that she broke down for the possibility of losing her granddaughter, his heart broke for her too. After that event, Wade was willing to feed him more bits of her life, and begged him to contact her. She was lonely, even she was O'Hara.

It was Wade who had told him that she was staying in this hotel on this day because of her sister's funeral. Her son worried about her. She refused her children accompanied her for the trip. They had seen enough, she said.

That was why he had been waiting for her in the hotel for hours. But his courage to face her again disappeared like a few black hairs hidden in his sandy gray. When coming to her, he was always afraid, never knew how to treat her properly, even he had imagined their reunion many times over the seventeen years. What he had done to her before their departing was not for nurturing her and loving her, rather for hurting her with cruel words and abandoning her with no ounce of kindness, even though to gain her love had been his only true passion for those twelve long enduring years.

He wanted to do it right this time. He determined to do right, and he couldn't afford to do wrong again. He must do it right, for her, the eternal love of his whole being, and for himself, his very own surviving.

"Miss O'Hara."

He didn't want to call her by her fourth married name. But she didn't respond as if she didn't believe anyone would call her maiden name at this time.

"Scarlett!"

She stopped for him, standing on the landing of the stairs, just like she did when she was in her tender youth of age sixteen.

* * *

 _AN: There it is, the second shot, from Rhett's point of view. Please let me know what do you think._

 _This short story more or less was started with a random thought. I really enjoyed writing it because I could see the end._ _Thank you all for your kind review and comments, as always._


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